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From: j...@gould9.UUCP (Joel West)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <842@gould9.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 20:58:18 EST
Article-I.D.: gould9.842
Posted: Mon Oct 27 20:58:18 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Oct-86 06:48:24 EST
Organization: Western Software Technology, Vista, CA
Lines: 23
Keywords: NuBus, VME, slotted Mac
As John Sculley himself confirmed, Apple is working hard to undo the
Steve Jobs' Macintosh-as-a-toaster no-slot mistake. (People don't spend
$2,500 for toasters; a CD-ROM/audio CD player at $400 would be a more
likely candidate for a mass-market home computer.) Some sort of
announcement in 1987 is expected, presumably before the non-competition
agreement with Jobs expires in summer '87.
The rumor column in 10/27 InfoWorld contains yet another claim that
the slotted Mac will use TI's NuBus. An observer I trust say that's
pure disinformation (presumably to catch leaks), that the product
is VME all the way.
I know the Sun-3 is VME; aren't most of the other 680xx boxes
also VME? To my knowledge, only LMI (Symbolics?) and TI use Nu.
Would anyone care to comment on the technical advantages to using
either bus? From a marketing standpoint, I would think VME would
offer a strong advantage.
--
Joel West MCI Mail: 282-8879
Western Software Technology, POB 2733, Vista, CA 92083
{cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel
joel%gould9.u...@NOSC.ARPA
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From: g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <1240@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 28-Oct-86 21:23:06 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1240
Posted: Tue Oct 28 21:23:06 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Oct-86 22:09:16 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 34
Keywords: NuBus, VME, slotted Mac
In article <8...@gould9.UUCP>, j...@gould9.UUCP (Joel West) writes:
> Would anyone care to comment on the technical advantages to using
> either bus? From a marketing standpoint, I would think VME would
> offer a strong advantage.
The advantages to a company of using a standard bus are mainly these:
* Your customers can plug in lots of cards to customize their system.
* Your customers can benefit from new technologies faster because you
(or they) can get new cards from third parties. Disks, disk controllers,
networking cards, tapes, serial ports, etc are all easier to buy than to
build, and the companies that specialize in building them often do a
better job than a system manufacturer like Apple would. (Remember the
horrible Apple hard disks? Remember the slow Mac floppies? The Mac
network that only talks to itself? Third parties would go bankrupt if
they tried to sell such stuff.)
The Nu bus is not a standard, and has been adopted by few companies.
The VMEbus is, and seems to be the "Multibus of the '80s" as far as
peripheral card availability. By the way, it is a "VMEbus", and the
cards that go in it are "VMEbus cards", not "VME cards". You don't
talk about plugging Uni cards into your Unibus, do you?
The other important characteristic of a system bus is that it not get in
the way. But this is less important than the above. Things that you
really need to be fast (e.g. main memory) can be put on a private bus.
It's a real drag waiting a few years to be able to plug in a simple thing
like a cheap or fast hard disk because nobody has built the controller for
your system. Mac and Lisa owners (pre-mac plus) know about this.
--
John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilm...@lll-crg.arpa
Overheard at a funeral: "I know this may be an awkward time, but do
you recall him ever mentioning source code?" -- Charles Addams
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orca!hammer!johnt
From: jo...@hammer.TEK.COM (John Theus)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
Date: Thu, 30-Oct-86 15:03:11 EST
Article-I.D.: hammer.2652
Posted: Thu Oct 30 15:03:11 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Nov-86 21:29:40 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jo...@hammer.UUCP (John Theus)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR
Lines: 36
Keywords: NuBus, VME, slotted Mac
In article <1...@hoptoad.uucp> g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>
>The Nu bus is not a standard, and has been adopted by few companies.
>The VMEbus is, and seems to be the "Multibus of the '80s" as far as
>peripheral card availability. By the way, it is a "VMEbus", and the
>cards that go in it are "VMEbus cards", not "VME cards". You don't
>talk about plugging Uni cards into your Unibus, do you?
And NuBus (IEEE 1196; IEEE 896 is Futurebus) is not Nu bus.
I don't know your definition of standard, but as far as the IEEE is
concerned neither is a standard, and both are awaiting approval by the
Computer Society's Microprocessor Standards Committee (MSC). Multibus II
is also at this stage, while Futurebus has been approved by the MSC.
If your definition of standard is based on the number of companies using
the bus, then yes, VMEbus is much more widely used.
If your definition of standard is based on the number of options and
incompatabilities allowed by a specification, then NuBus wins hands down.
With NuBus you don't have the problems of differing address and data widths,
and a free for all in the use of the address space.
NuBus was developed at MIT. Western Digital went into the business of
building boards for MIT and the NuMachine, and for LMI. TI bought this
business from Western Digital, and uses NuBus in their AI machines.
The principal players at WD, and then TI, now work at Corollary.
George White of Corollary is the chairman of the IEEE 1196 committee.
NuBus, along with Multibus II and Futurebus, can all be classified as
modern, full feature buses, while VMEbus is a wide Multibus with an improved
electrical environment.
John Theus
Futurebus Parallel Protocol Coordinator
Tektronix, Inc.
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Path: utzoo!henry
From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <7288@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Nov-86 16:47:10 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7288
Posted: Wed Nov 5 16:47:10 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Nov-86 16:47:10 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp>, <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 17
Keywords: NuBus, VME, slotted Mac
> NuBus, along with Multibus II and Futurebus, can all be classified as
> modern, full feature buses, while VMEbus is a wide Multibus with an improved
> electrical environment.
Personally, I don't *want* a "full feature" bus! I want something simple
and fast which doesn't make me use half the board (or expensive single-sourced
slow-delivery buggy semi-vaporware VVVLSI) for bus interfaces. It looks to
me like the bus-design community is going through a delayed version of the
processor-architecture community's evolution. The "full feature" buses are
the Intel 432 of bus design. It's high time for a RISC bus.
(I may be being a bit hard on the NuBus; as I recall, it's not as bad as
the rest. Multibus II and Futurebus are definitely 432buses, and VMEbus
avoids that distinction only if you ignore the more recent tailfins.)
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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From: c...@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach; Lord of the OtherRealms)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <8980@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 12:27:27 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.8980
Posted: Thu Nov 6 12:27:27 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Nov-86 22:18:53 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <203@druil.UUCP> <2199@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd
Lines: 14
> Its a hard call to make, but if the Mac had been open in the beginning, would
> it have retained its essence?
Even more important: If the original Mac had been open, would anyone have
bought it? remember that an open bus adds a LOT of complexity to a system,
since you can't put everything on a single board anymore -- you have added
costs for a larger power supply, a backplane, for FCC RF interference
reductions, for all sorts of things.
If the Mac had come out at $5,000 each, with 128K in it and no software,
would YOU have bought it? Would all of the other people who did buy the Mac
buy it at double the cost?
If the Lisa is any indication, the answer it obvious...
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Path: utzoo!henry
From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <7310@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Nov-86 21:42:22 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7310
Posted: Mon Nov 10 21:42:22 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Nov-86 21:42:22 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <203@druil.UUCP>
<2199@ecsvax.UUCP>, <8980@sun.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 27
The genesis of the Mac's closed-box philosophy can be traced back to an
Apple internal paper, published a few years ago in one of the ACM SIG
publications, titled something like "Making a million computers a year".
A fascinating paper; the problems of producing computers in that kind of
volume are mind-boggling. (For example, if you keep a one-month inventory
of $2000 computers, that's $166 MILLION dollars tied up in inventory alone!)
Harbingers of the Mac are all through that paper. The closed-box approach
comes from two considerations: (1) the people who will buy computers at
that kind of production volume ("the rest of us") want one-piece turnkey
hardware that does not need assembly or configuring; (2) maintenance and
support for that many computers is a horrible nightmare unless the
configuration is utterly standardized.
Seen in this light, the shift to a slotted Mac is *not* the correction of
a technical mistake; the original technical reasoning was correct. The
mistake was in marketing, to wit the assumption of selling truly vast
numbers of computers to unsophisticated customers. Given more modest
sales to generally more knowledgeable customers, the closed-box philosophy
is less appropriate. (Actually, I think the closed-box Mac could still
have been a conspicuous success if it had had (a) more memory, (b) either
a built-in hard disk or a straightforward way of attaching fast mass-storage
peripherals [e.g. SCSI], and perhaps (c) memory-management hardware to blur
the limits of physical memory. Apple's biggest mistake was not the closed
box, but a closed box that didn't have quite enough inside it.)
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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From: c...@sei.cmu.edu (Clifford Huff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <393@aw.sei.cmu.edu.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 11:26:58 EST
Article-I.D.: aw.393
Posted: Tue Nov 11 11:26:58 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Nov-86 20:18:38 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
<7288@utzoo.UUCP> <47@nikhefk.UUCP>
Sender: netn...@sei.cmu.edu
Reply-To: c...@cg.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (Cliff Huff)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, SEI, Pgh, Pa
Lines: 117
Keywords: NuBus futurebus standard
In article <4...@nikhefk.UUCP> he...@nikhefk.uucp (Henk Peek) writes:
>Where can I get a the current futurebus and NuBus "work" standards.
>I have only an old futurebus concept. Are there differences between
>the TI-NuBus and MIT-Nubus?
>
You can find out more infomation about the proposed IEEE P1196 standard
(NuBus), by contacting one of the following sources of infomation:
Secretary, IEEE Standards Board
345 E. 47th St.
New York, NY 10017
IEEE Computer Society
10662 Los Vaqueros Circle
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
(714) 821--8380
IEEE Service Center
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854
(201) 981-1393
This information was extracted from a recent article in IEEE Spectrum Oct 86,
"A Framework For Computer Design", which dealt with the topic of buses
and bus standards. The article listed all present and proposed IEEE
bus standards along with a short description of their typical uses.
The article has the following comments about the following buses:
NuBus IEEE P1196
"High performance microprocessor bus with simple protocols
independent of processors and manufacturers"
Typical use: "Lean multiple microprocessor systems"
Originators: MIT and Texas Instruments
Other Comments about NuBus in article:
"Another next-generation bus, Nubus (IEEE P1196), was sponsored
for standardization by Texas Instruments. It is another high-
performance bus designed to be processor-independent, based
in part on its simplicity. It has so many features in common
with Mulitbus II that a merger of the two standards was proposed
at one time. However, Nubus has a leaner protocol that Multibus
II. In contrast to the subsystem philosophy of both Intel and
Motorola, Nubus has no associated memory, I/O, or serial buses.
It thus has a certain appeal to potential users who favor a
stripped-down approach to multiprocessing."
VME IEEE P1014
"Popluar system bus initially conceived to support the
Motorola 68000 processor family"
Typical use: "High-end microprocessor systems"
Originator: Motorola
Multibus IEEE 796
"Widely used microprocessor system bus supporting Intel
and other processors"
Typical use: "Mid-range microprocessor systems"
Originator: Intel
Multibus II IEEE P1296
"High-performance microprocessor system bus"
Typical use: "High-end multiple processor systems"
Originator: Intel
Futurebus IEEE P896
"Very high-performance system bus independent of processors and
manufacturers."
Typical use: "Top-end multiple microprocessor systems"
Originator: IEEE
->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->->-> :)
Concerning the next generation of slotted-Macintoshes, the 27 Oct issue of
InfoWorld in 'Notes from the Field' had these rumors and comments:
It is reported that the slotted-Mac will have at least 6 Nubus slots, but
some versions may have a dozen. (Yes) Apple has made provisions for a
MS-DOS card that uses an Intel 80286 that will run DOS as a task. (I
understand that this is being done in cooperation with the same people
who provide the Phoneix BIOS.) The slotted-Mac will run either the Mac
operating system or a version of Unix System V with Berkeley 4.2 BSD
extensions. With Unix, they'll throw in C, Fortran-77, and Assembler and
make MPW Pascal an option.
Infoworld also reports that slotted-Mac won't appear until March 86.
Three months later, Apple would fix the slotted-Mac so it can do
multitasking with the Mac operating system running under Unix. The
article goes on to say the Mac would use a 25-MHz 68020 with 68881
floating point coprocessor. The Mac would also use a special memory
management chip (MMU) to make multitasking operate faster than if it was
done by the 68020.
Regarding displays, Infoworld reports Apple will sell two displays initially,
both with 680 by 480 pixel resolution. One will be a 12-inch monochrome
monitor and the other a 13-inch color monitor. At introduction will be a
special video card for driving the displays in true gray scale. Later,
they'll move up to a pair of 19-inch monitors, one monochrome and the other
color.
So there is the latest from Infoworld regarding the next generations of
Mac's...
____ ______ _____ _____===== Cliff Huff
/ __ \ | _____| |_ _| _____========= c...@sei.cmu.edu
| |__|_| | |__ | | _____============= Software Eng. Institue
_\___ \ | __| | | _____================= Carnegie-Mellon Univ.
| |__| | | |____ _| |_ _____============= Pittsburgh, PA 15213
\____/ |______| |_____| _____========= (412) 268-6382
-----=====
C a r n e g i e - M e l l o n U n i v e r s i t y
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From: c...@sei.cmu.edu (Clifford Huff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <394@aw.sei.cmu.edu.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 11:59:41 EST
Article-I.D.: aw.394
Posted: Tue Nov 11 11:59:41 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Nov-86 20:19:23 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <203@druil.UUCP>
<2199@ecsvax.UUCP> <8980@sun.uucp> <7310@utzoo.UUCP>
Sender: netn...@sei.cmu.edu
Reply-To: c...@cg.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (Cliff Huff)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, SEI, Pgh, Pa
Lines: 114
Keywords: NuBus, Slotted-Mac
For people interested in the Nubus, you can find out more infomation about the
proposed IEEE P1196 standard (NuBus), by contacting one of the following sources
of infomation:
Secretary, IEEE Standards Board
345 E. 47th St.
New York, NY 10017
IEEE Computer Society
10662 Los Vaqueros Circle
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
(714) 821--8380
IEEE Service Center
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854
(201) 981-1393
This information was extracted from a recent article in IEEE Spectrum Oct 86,
"A Framework For Computer Design", which dealt with the topic of buses
and bus standards. The article listed all present and proposed IEEE
bus standards along with a short description of their typical uses.
The article has the following comments about the following buses:
NuBus IEEE P1196
"High performance microprocessor bus with simple protocols
independent of processors and manufacturers"
Typical use: "Lean multiple microprocessor systems"
Originators: MIT and Texas Instruments
Other Comments about NuBus in article:
"Another next-generation bus, Nubus (IEEE P1196), was sponsored
for standardization by Texas Instruments. It is another high-
performance bus designed to be processor-independent, based
in part on its simplicity. It has so many features in common
with Mulitbus II that a merger of the two standards was proposed
at one time. However, Nubus has a leaner protocol that Multibus
II. In contrast to the subsystem philosophy of both Intel and
Motorola, Nubus has no associated memory, I/O, or serial buses.
It thus has a certain appeal to potential users who favor a
stripped-down approach to multiprocessing."
VME IEEE P1014
"Popluar system bus initially conceived to support the
Motorola 68000 processor family"
Typical use: "High-end microprocessor systems"
Originator: Motorola
Multibus IEEE 796
"Widely used microprocessor system bus supporting Intel
and other processors"
Typical use: "Mid-range microprocessor systems"
Originator: Intel
Multibus II IEEE P1296
"High-performance microprocessor system bus"
Typical use: "High-end multiple processor systems"
Originator: Intel
Futurebus IEEE P896
"Very high-performance system bus independent of processors and
manufacturers."
Typical use: "Top-end multiple microprocessor systems"
Originator: IEEE
:)
Concerning the next generation of slotted-Macintoshes, the 27 Oct issue of
InfoWorld in 'Notes from the Field' had these rumors and comments:
It is reported that the slotted-Mac will have at least 6 Nubus slots, but
some versions may have a dozen. (Yes) Apple has made provisions for a
MS-DOS card that uses an Intel 80286 that will run DOS as a task. (I
understand that this is being done in cooperation with the same people
who provide the Phoneix BIOS.) The slotted-Mac will run either the Mac
operating system or a version of Unix System V with Berkeley 4.2 BSD
extensions. With Unix, they'll throw in C, Fortran-77, and Assembler and
make MPW Pascal an option.
Infoworld also reports that slotted-Mac won't appear until March 86.
Three months later, Apple would fix the slotted-Mac so it can do
multitasking with the Mac operating system running under Unix. The
article goes on to say the Mac would use a 25-MHz 68020 with 68881
floating point coprocessor. The Mac would also use a special memory
management chip (MMU) to make multitasking operate faster than if it was
done by the 68020.
Regarding displays, Infoworld reports Apple will sell two displays initially,
both with 680 by 480 pixel resolution. One will be a 12-inch monochrome
monitor and the other a 13-inch color monitor. At introduction will be a
special video card for driving the displays in true gray scale. Later,
they'll move up to a pair of 19-inch monitors, one monochrome and the other
color.
So there is the latest from Infoworld regarding the next generations of
Mac's...
____ ______ _____ _____===== Cliff Huff
/ __ \ | _____| |_ _| _____========= c...@sei.cmu.edu
| |__|_| | |__ | | _____============= Software Eng. Institue
_\___ \ | __| | | _____================= Carnegie-Mellon Univ.
| |__| | | |____ _| |_ _____============= Pittsburgh, PA 15213
\____/ |______| |_____| _____========= (412) 268-6382
-----=====
C a r n e g i e - M e l l o n U n i v e r s i t y
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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: r...@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <2492@phri.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 15:30:38 EST
Article-I.D.: phri.2492
Posted: Tue Nov 11 15:30:38 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Nov-86 10:07:08 EST
References: <2199@ecsvax.UUCP> <8980@sun.uucp> <7310@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: r...@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 27
In article <7...@utzoo.UUCP> he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> The genesis of the Mac's closed-box philosophy can be traced back to an
> Apple internal paper, published a few years ago in one of the ACM SIG
> publications, titled something like "Making a million computers a year".
Another must-read paper for anybody interested in MacHistory:
%T Design case history: Apple's Macintosh
%A Fred Guterl
%J IEEE Spectrum
%V 21
%N 12
%P 34-43
%D December 1984
The design trade-offs are staggering. Why not extra RAM or a
second floppy drive? Too much heat to survive without a cooling fan. Have
to save on PCB real estate? Make the video circuitry do double duty as the
sound generator during the vertical retrace. Why no parallel interface?
Because the serial interfaces are almost as fast and are a lot easier to
shield to meet FCC specs. Read the paper.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"you can't spell unix without deoxyribonucleic!"
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Path: utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
From: jimom...@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <1381@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Nov-86 22:50:14 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1381
Posted: Tue Nov 11 22:50:14 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Nov-86 23:54:25 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jimom...@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura)
Organization: Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
Lines: 16
Keywords: NuBus futurebus standard
Summary: Skeptical
I just read Cliff's posting with the quotes from the magazine
article about the various busses. From what knowledge I have, I
have some doubts about the quality of the article and I would like
to hear what other more knowledgeable people could say about it.
What stuck out in my mind was the blurb on VME. It said that VME
was a Motorola bus. VME has been heavily promoted by Motorola but
it is *not* a Motorola bus. It is intended to be a generallized
design.
Cheers! -- Jim O.
--
James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
Byte Information eXchange: jimomura
(416) 652-3880
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From: t...@intsc.UUCP (Tom Kohrs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <401@intsc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Nov-86 15:20:37 EST
Article-I.D.: intsc.401
Posted: Thu Nov 13 15:20:37 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Nov-86 23:01:44 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
<7288@utzoo.UUCP> <47@nikhefk.UUCP> <393@aw.sei.cmu.edu
<1381@lsuc.U13 Nov 86 20:20:37 GMT
Organization: Intel Sales, Silicon Valley, Ca.
Lines: 21
In article <1...@lsuc.UUCP James Omura writes:
> It said that VME
> was a Motorola bus. VME has been heavily promoted by Motorola but
> it is *not* a Motorola bus. It is intended to be a generallized
> design.
What ever Motorola may have told the public, VME is not a generalized bus.
All of the control signals and timings are direct extensions of 68000
processor. You might be able to consider VME as a non-Mot product much
like the 68K is no longer a Motorola product. If you think the VME
architecture is generalized talk to someone that has tried to put a non-68K
engine on the bus, it is not trivial.
--
------
"Ever notice how your mental image of someone you've
known only by phone turns out to be wrong?
And on a computer net you don't even have a voice..."
t...@intsc.UUCP Tom Kohrs
Regional Architecture Specialist
Intel - Santa Clara
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!hoptoad!gnu
From: g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <1283@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Thu, 13-Nov-86 23:38:24 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1283
Posted: Thu Nov 13 23:38:24 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Nov-86 01:58:03 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
<401@intsc.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 23
In article <4...@intsc.UUCP>, t...@intsc.UUCP (Tom Kohrs) writes:
> If you think the VME
> architecture is generalized talk to someone that has tried to put a non-68K
> engine on the bus, it is not trivial.
Who ever claimed that commercial computer design is trivial?
I appreciate that it is harder to put a non-68K on a VMEbus. I'm
wondering if Tom has ever built Multibus systems out of 68K's. (For
the uninitiated, Tom works at Intel, and the Multibus was an 8080 bus,
subsequently revised for 8086's.) Byte order was a constant hassle (the
Tapemaster Multibus tape controller STILL requires the Sun driver to
byte-swap ALL THE DATA going to or from the drive, precluding
streaming). You can make a good, saleable system using a "non native"
bus though -- we did.
We could all live with a bus that was hard for EVERYBODY to interface
to, but why bother? I'd rather it be easy for at least ONE major chip
to interface to...
--
John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilm...@lll-crg.arpa
"I can't think of a better way for the War Dept to spend money than to
subsidize the education of teenage system hackers by creating the Arpanet."
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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-unix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim
From: t...@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <4523@ism780c.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Nov-86 17:52:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ism780c.4523
Posted: Mon Nov 17 17:52:51 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 22:53:42 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
<401@intsc.UUCP> <1283@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: t...@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 13
In article <1...@hoptoad.uucp> g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> subsequently revised for 8086's.) Byte order was a constant hassle (the
> Tapemaster Multibus tape controller STILL requires the Sun driver to
> byte-swap ALL THE DATA going to or from the drive, precluding
> streaming).
Why doesn't Sun use the Tapemaster-A, which will do the byte swapping
by itself?
--
emordnilapanalpanama
Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim Compuserve: 72257,3706
Delphi or GEnie: mnementh
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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-crg!hoptoad!gnu
From: g...@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Re: What's Nu with VME for Mac?
Message-ID: <1315@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Wed, 19-Nov-86 17:53:29 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1315
Posted: Wed Nov 19 17:53:29 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Nov-86 22:08:21 EST
References: <842@gould9.UUCP> <1240@hoptoad.uucp> <2652@hammer.TEK.COM>
<4523@ism780c.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 13
In article <4...@ism780c.UUCP>, t...@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) writes:
> Why doesn't Sun use the Tapemaster-A, which will do the byte swapping
> by itself?
Perhaps by now they do. I know they leaned on Tapemaster for years to
get this solved. The point remains that using big endian byte order on
the Multibus was a hassle, though the market eventually moved to make
it easier. I presume that if enough people build little endian VMEbus
systems, the same thing will happen to VMEbus peripherals.
--
John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilm...@lll-crg.arpa
"I can't think of a better way for the War Dept to spend money than to
subsidize the education of teenage system hackers by creating the Arpanet."